A solvent loss study for the application of solvent extraction processes in the pharmaceutical industry

Abstract

Liquid – liquid extraction (LLE) processes have been widely applied to extract active pharmaceutical compounds (APCs) from plant materials at both the laboratory and industrial-scale. The approach to modify the aqueous phase with small molecule organic modifiers has been used to increase the solubility of APCs in the aqueous phase. This work investigates the solvent loss for 18 LLE systems, including three aqueous phase modifiers (methanol, ethanol and acetone), three traditional volatile organic compounds (VOCs) solvents (xylene, methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) and n-heptane) and three green solvents (d-limonene, α-pinene and p-cymene) with the aim of identifying the most suitable solvents fo..